Dear Richard
So awesome to speak to you last night J And it was great to
see how much the kids enjoyed hearing your voice J
Caleb doesn’t remember you, of course, but it’s good for him to hear you
periodically, and so when we’re talking about you he can kind of put you into
context. But I know that he’ll have to get to know you again from scratch
really, so that’s okay. And he’ll warm up to you quickly, because he’s that
kind of child.
I wasn’t teaching last week, but I spent the time working on
the new groups textbook, and also the old textbook. With the old textbook we’re
at the final editing stages of the new edition, checking the edits that the
editor has done. With the groups textbook we’re doing some pretty major edits
based on the reviews that we’ve got so far.
Wednesday was the national general elections. On Tuesday I
was telling the kids that we’d be going the next day to vote, which meant we’d
be saying who we thought should be in charge of South Africa. Joshua responded,
“I know who should be in charge – Jesus!” Out of the mouths of babes… But of
course that’s not how it’s going to work for now… So it worked out that the ANC
dropped their majority slightly, with the DA and Julius Malema’s party, the
Economic Freedom Fighters, getting a higher proportion than before. I must say
that seeing that the ANC did actually have such a biggish decrease gives me a
bit more confidence that that voting process is reasonably sound. It will be a
test at the next election though to see if they would allow their majority to
drop below 60% if that’s how it looks like it will go. In the Western Cape the
DA has been voted back with a bigger majority, which is great for our day to
day living J
On Friday afternoon I went to the kid’s school for a
Mother’s Day afternoon tea. It was pretty chaotic, because it was raining, so
we were all inside the classrooms, and then also because I have 3 kids at the
school I was going between the 3 different classes with all 3 kids in tow… But
it was still a special time J
Saturday we went to Fish Hoek to see Andrew’s mom, and then
Sunday we spent most of the afternoon at home, and then went over to Mom and
Dad a bit. Andrew helped to make my Mother’s Day special, but I must be honest,
the kids didn’t make it the best one ever… They gave me nice cards and they
sang in sacrament meeting (but I couldn’t see them singing because I had to
play, so I was behind them L),
but they were pretty badly behaved during the afternoon, so it did put a bit of
a dampener on the day. But I know they do love and appreciate me, they’re just
too young to appreciate the significance of the day. I wouldn’t change them for
anything though!
Yesterday in my Sunday School class we were talking about
Moses’ last messages to the Israelites, in the book of Deuteronomy. One of the
things he reminded them of was how important it was to not forget the Lord in
times of plenty, and the lesson had the quote by Brigham Young “The worst fear
that I have about [members of this Church] is that they will get rich in this
country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the
Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and
all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that
they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they
will become the richest people on this earth” One of the YSA commented that
sometimes our spiritual wealth can also
be a problem for us. We can think that we’ve got a stronger testimony, or more
gospel knowledge, and we can let pride creep in. Either thinking we’re better
than other people, or just thinking that we’re fine and we don’t have to worry
about ourselves. Very interesting take on wealth. And again, a case where
wealth is a good thing, as long as you don’t let pride get in the way, and the
Lord wants to bless us with both spiritual and temporal wealth, but then it
will be a test to see how we respond.
So anyway, that’s me for the week. This week is going to be
all about preparing for Hannah’s birthday and party on Saturday. But then we’ll
be done with parties for a while at least!
Have a good week!
Shelly
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